


A Strategic Misstep

by jtjenna (pornographicpenguin)



Series: Omega!Levi Verse [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alpha Eren Yeager, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta Erwin Smith, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), also there's a lot of yelling :P, the eren/levi is unrequited and more related to eren's deluded crush on levi than anything else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 05:26:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5035600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pornographicpenguin/pseuds/jtjenna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Erwin is too calculating for his own goddamn good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strategic Misstep

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for dub-con -- not hardcore noncon or anything, but definitely not the model of consent you want to be using.
> 
> additional disclaimer: i am not even remotely close to caught-up with the manga. i have not even gotten to the part where erwin loses his arm, so this is mostly just me talking out of my ass. but either way, omega!levi is near and dear to my heart and i hope you guys enjoy his emotional struggles. :)
> 
> also i would like to share with you that the working title for this fic was "hot dog"

Eren has always been absolutely certain that Captain Levi is an Alpha.

The evidence in favor of that interpretation is overwhelming, Eren thinks:  his commandeering attitude, his violent tendencies, the aura that rolls off him that makes Eren’s blood tingle and his insides tremble.

Every time he brings it up, of course, he’s laughed out of being taken seriously.  “He’s too small, Eren,” they say -- mostly Jean, actually, because Jean has always been looking for some excuse to fight with Eren from the first day they met, it seems like.  “They don’t even make Alphas that small.”

(The one time he had turned to Mikasa to ask her opinion of the matter, she shut him down with a look that made Eren feel like if he uttered one more word she would stab him in the throat.  Or go find Levi and stab him in the throat.   _She_ still doesn’t like Levi, despite how much she respects him a soldier.)

General consensus is that Levi is a Beta.  Occasionally, someone throws around the idea that he might be an Omega, and the suggestion is met with a loud series of guffaws.  An Omega couldn’t be that violent.  That in-control.  Obviously.

But Eren knows.  In fact, he’s absolutely certain.  Captain Levi _has_  to be an Alpha.  Somewhere deep in his gut, Eren is absolutely certain.  

It doesn’t even have anything to do with the fact that Eren is sure he only likes Alphas, and he’s been nursing a major crush on his Captain since he had joined the Survey Corps at fifteen.  The certainty Eren has doesn’t have anything to do with himself, or his preferences.  It’s that Levi can boss him around with no more than a pointed glance in his direction, makes Eren feel like he should be bending backwards to accommodate whatever it is that Levi wants, kneeling at his feet.  

(Sometimes Eren has dreams about doing so.)

Eren’s never met another Alpha that can do that.

So when Eren opens the door to Captain Levi’s room and the scent of Omega rushes out in a big, intoxicating gust, stopping Eren in his tracks like he just walked face-first into a brick wall, he’s not entirely sure what is going on.

He hears Levi swear, loudly, from somewhere -- around the corner, there’s a door.  Must be a bathroom.  Eren feels his head spin, blood rushing to odd places with a sickening speed, doesn’t even notice when he clenches the paper Commander Erwin had given him into a ball.  “Shut the goddamn door, Erwin!”

 

Eren is not Erwin.  For a long, stuttering second, Eren does not quite remember this.  He shuts the door anyway.

When Erwin had sent him, he’d told Eren not to knock.

(“Why do I have to deliver this?” Eren had asked, staring down at the paper Erwin had given him.  It had plenty of long words Eren couldn’t make out the meaning of even if he tried to sound them out in his head, so after a few seconds he gave up.

Erwin had raised an eyebrow.  “Don’t you understand the concept of delegation, Eren?”)

Before he even sees Levi emerge into the main room, Eren lets the paper lurch out of his hand with the same disorienting motion as his head does.

\---

Levi runs a towel through the strands of his hair, and shuts the water off just in time to hear the door to his quarters click quietly closed.  “I swear to god,” he says, wrapping the towel around his waist, “what were you doing, taking the longest shit of your life?  You know _I’m_  the one getting fucked in the ass, rig -- “

He rounds the corner, steps out the door to the bathroom, and cuts himself off.  Erwin Smith is not the person standing in the doorway.

“Um,” Eren says.

Levi’s heart thuds out an uneven beat against his ribcage.  “What the fuck,” he says.  From across the room he can see the way Eren’s eyes light up, and then cloud, feels his vision go all blurry when he sees the line of Eren’s throat contract in a swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.  “What the fuck are you doing here, Jaeger?”

“Uh,” Eren says.  Levi watches with a keen eye as Eren takes a step forward.  “Commander Erwin, uh…”  He takes another step forward.  Levi holds his ground, feels his lungs expand with air as he breathes in and shudder in his throat on the way out.

“Spit it out,” Levi says.  Firmly, clearly.  Like a command, even though he can feel his heart beating out of control and his blood burning hot in his veins and his lines of thought fraying at the ends.

Eren stiffens.  “Commander Erwin sent me.”  He pauses, eyes travelling from Levi’s eyes to his toes and back again.  “Captain, are you -- ?”

Erwin sent him.  Erwin.

He’s pretty sure Eren says something else, finishes his fucking sentence, but it gets drowned out by the sound of Levi’s own heartbeat thunking in his ears, his veins and tendons and the tips of his fingers alight with fullbodied rage.  Erwin.  Erwin sent Eren fucking Jaeger to him, when he was in fucking heat, Erwin let somebody find out, on purpose --

His train of thought stutters and stumbles when he realizes the palms of his hands are splayed across the kid’s cheeks.  

Levi pauses for maybe a half a second before he thinks, Fuck it.

In retrospect, Levi will be able to identify the decision as the result of a cocktail of hormones and the violent shards of anger tumbling through his bloodstream, or the fact that when he slams his lips into Eren’s the kid kisses him back with a primal, almost mindless kind of drive that feels more _good_  than it does anything else.  It’s like electricity hopping between the two of them, like the key to some kind of puzzle, the kid scrabbling at his skin, a push at Levi’s chest until his back’s up against the wall and those four inches Eren has on him are enough for him to tower over Levi, make him tilt his head up to line their mouths up properly.

Levi feels himself go under.  He pushes Eren back towards his bed, rips at the buttons of his pants -- hadn't he had a towel at some point?  Where had he lost that?  Levi sinks his teeth into Eren's neck, has no idea if the kid even makes a sound, feels himself rushing desperate and furious towards the finish line.  He shoves Eren back on the bed and crawls on top of him, hands braced on either side of the kid's head, brain a mess of white noise and the curve of Eren’s neck and the way his dick nudges up against the inside of Levi’s thighs.

“Captain,” Eren says.

Levi barely even pauses, hands in the process of tearing apart the buttons of Eren’s shirt (there’s one in his hand, a little nub of tin and a wisp of string).  He freezes, and spends a long, disorganized moment staring down at the plane of Eren’s chest, something vague occurring to him about how young the kid is, how wrong -- but something swells up in his chest and washes those thoughts away.  He picks up right where he left off.

“Captain,” Eren says, again.  Slower this time, but breather, with an undercurrent of unabashed need that makes Levi's stomach flip with something he can't place as being either good or bad or anything in between:  it's just satisfying, does something to fill up the gnawing little hole sitting in the pit of his stomach.

Eren’s fingers fumble at Levi's thighs and Levi rakes his fingernails down Eren's chest, from his collarbone to the waistband of the kid's pants where Levi can feel his cock pressing up against the buttons underneath the flat of his palm, Eren’s hips squirming in little jerky motions.  "Levi," Eren says, and it makes something in Levi _scream_  with fulfillment.  Little red lines on his chest, fingertips digging into the thin 3DMG scars on Levi's thighs.  His own gaze traces the same scars on Eren’s body -- over the curves of his shoulders, the insides of his knees, and lighter than Levi’s.  More of an irate red than the tired, muddy brown that Levi’s are.

Levi watches with hazy eyes as Eren runs his hands up Levi’s legs, thumbs tracing along his scars, the tips of his fingers running through the fluid slicking down Levi’s inner thighs.  “God,” Eren says.

Levi looms over Eren, hands braced on either side of the kid’s head.  “Hurry the fuck up,” Levi mutters.  He’s surprised when he hears his own voice, how it comes out raspy and quiet and almost frail-sounding.  Like all the control he’s gained over the years has gone straight out the window.

Eren glances up to meet Levi’s gaze for a split second -- like he had just remembered that there are other parts of Levi, parts he hadn’t been touching -- before switching his focus right back again.  He slips his fingers inside Levi without an inch of hesitation.

Over the years, Levi has gotten much better at controlling himself during his heats -- he still feels like he’s spinning out, trying to keep himself from toppling off the edge of a cliff, but he’s gotten better.  The feeling never truly stops be he can deal with it much more competently now, without all the anger and the volatile mood swings.  It’s more like a controlled kind of slip off the edge of sanity, (with Erwin always there to catch him when he falls).

Erwin.

This is nothing like it has been.  It’s not like riding the wave and waiting it out, it’s like being taken under and drowned within an inch of his life.  Eren’s fingers crook inside of him and Levi feels like he did the first time, careening off the edge of his own mind, panting and sweating, fingers knotting in the sheets, heart thumping hot and angry and out-of-control.

Eren’s eyes are wide, with a sliver of hard-edged want shining behind his pupils.  All at once, Levi is overcome with the urge to be sick.

He grabs Eren’s wrist.  Inside him, Eren’s fingers still.  “Just -- “ it takes him a long moment to find the words he wants with Eren staring at him, with his eyes so young and enthralled.  “Just fuck me already.”

Eren breathes in.  “Right,” he says.

Levi sees it, then:  Eren really is just a kid, no matter how many horrifying things he’s seen, just a kid, just a --

Eren lines Levi up with his dick and pulls Levi down.

In retrospect, Levi will realize that the reason it’s so bad this time is because Eren is an Alpha, fueled by pheremones or whatever shit, and it makes Levi worse, makes the whole thing more intense, makes him wanna crawl out of his own skin and fuck the brat like he deserves to be fucked -

Further in retrospect, Levi will know that impulse may have been a bit misdirected.  But in the present all he does is moan loud enough that he swears the entire Corps must be able to hear him.  He feels his arms shake and drops to his elbows, breath skating over Eren’s neck, fingers knotted tight in the kid’s hair.

“Fuck,” he says, as Eren thrusts up into him.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck,” he says it over and over again in time with Eren’s thrusts, like a mantra, or a plea to keep him above water when he feels like he’s drowning in his own body, fighting to hang onto the little bit of control he has.  His throat constricts and lets out some kind of high-pitched, needy noise -- and god is it mortifying, but for once the concern remains almost entirely secondary because he feels so -- so --

Overwhelmed.

It’s not good, necessarily.  Just intense.

Levi swears one more time as Eren thrusts again, the sharp jut of his hips slamming into Levi’s ass harder than he should be able to from this angle.  It hits him that he’s not in control at all, not like he usually would be in this position.  (He tries not to, but Levi still remembers the first time, the very first time where he had been face-down in his own mattress, squinting his eyes shut and trying not to think about who it was that was fucking him, about how angry it made him.)  It’s all Eren, all him setting the pace, even when Levi tries to change, tugs at his hair and buries his teeth in the kid’s neck, it’s Eren’s hands on his hips and Eren’s cock thrusting up into him.

Levi feels his heart thud in his chest.  He sinks his teeth into Eren’s shoulder, this time, but it lacks the bite he wants it to.  He feels Eren’s hands move from his hips, one coming up to press between his shoulder blades and the other at his lower back.  “Captain,” Eren whispers.  Levi breathes in the scent of Eren’s sweat and feels like he’s going to throw up.

“Captain,” Eren moans.  He presses his lips to Levi’s throat, almost tender.  “Wanted you for so long,” he mutters, just at Levi’s threshold for hearing.  “God, you’re so -- “

“Shut up,” Levi snaps, and yanks on Eren’s hair.  It stops the speech but it doesn’t stop the way Eren holds him, presses their chests together and his rakes his lips along Levi’s neck.  

It filters up to his hormone-ridden, undeniably panicked brain that Eren used to have a crush on him.

Levi feels his lungs fill to the brim with shame   Getting fucked by an Alpha is simultaneously one of the most viscerally pleasing things Levi’s ever experienced, as well as long of the most fundamentally awful.

When Eren pushes up, turns Levi on his back, Levi closes his eyes and lets him.

He gives in.

“Levi,” Eren mutters as he fucks into Levi without a modicum of control or care.  “Levi,” he says again, and Levi still hasn’t given up his grip on Eren’s hair, so he gives it another good tug and Eren moans.

“Levi!” he gasps.  “Levi!”

Levi feels Eren come inside him in excruciating detail.  It’s warm and liquid and worms around in his insides.

Levi lets his head fall back against the mattress and stares at the ceiling.  He feels himself come down, the thundering pace of his heart slowing to a crawl, his muscles going lax and his brain rising up from the haze he’s been in.

Eren's breath strikes hot over the skin of Levi's neck as his arms give out and he collapses onto Levi's chest.  Levi pushes him off with with minimal effort, letting the kid fall to his side, his nose buried in the curve of Levi’s shoulder.  “Captain,” he mutters on the tailend of a breath.

Levi stares at the ceiling.  He squeezes his eyes shut for a long, long moment.  He takes a deep breath.  “Eren, I need you to leave.”

Eren stirs.  “What?”

Levi says, as cooly as he can manage, carefully enunciating every word, “I need you to leave.”

“Wh…” Eren mumbles.  “Why?”

Levi can’t deal with this right now.  He can’t deal with the kid’s stupid feelings, the gigantic fucking mess that Erwin made -- his own horrible fucking decisions.

“Get.  Out.”  Levi says, pointing a finger at the door.  When Eren doesn’t move, he tacks on, “That’s an order.”

Thankfully, Eren obeys.  He crawls over Levi, pulls his clothes off the floor, and dresses as best he can.  Levi remembers tearing the buttons off his shirt and knows they must be scattered across the floor.  Eren’s going to leave the room with his shirt hanging open.

Twelve years.  Twelve years Levi managed to keep this a secret.

The door closes behind Eren with a quiet, wounded thud.  But Eren is secondary.

Levi can still feel the last dredges of his heat pumping through his veins as he stands and dresses.  He doesn’t let himself lay in bed for a moment longer, doesn’t let himself have that empty moment, or a moment full of thought, of contemplation.  He just does:  clean clothes to mask the scent of his heat, wiping the sweat and come from his skin, willing the flush on his cheeks to disappear.

He leaves his quarters not five minutes after Eren does.  Just before closing the door behind him, he glances at the floor and snatches up the crumpled piece of paper Eren had dropped just inside the doorway.  

No one happens to be standing in the hall, so he has the clearance to storm down to Erwin’s quarters with not a single obstacle in the way.  If Levi were religious he would think that some higher being had cleared the path for him.

Levi isn’t that kind of person, however.  It’s simply luck.  He heads down two flights of stairs and halfway across the building without running into another soul.  Without any questions to answer or suspicions to dissuade, though it’s not like it matters anymore.  He’s managed to keep it a secret for more than a decade and then he fucked Eren Jaeger and the entire Corps is going to know by tomorrow morning, he has no doubt.

He stands outside Erwin’s door and tries to make his hands stop shaking, his breath stop rattling in his chest, but then he thinks, Fuck it.  The toe of his boot connects with the wood of Erwin’s door with a loud thud! and the door continues to swing back into the wall, handle clattering loudly against the stone surface.

Erwin, sitting at his desk, glances up.

Levi crosses his arms and spits, “Fuck you.”

Carefully, with his hand held up, palm facing Levi, Erwin stands.  He begins to speak:  carefully, firmly, like he’s reciting the beginning of a speech, “Levi…”

Levi doesn’t let him finish.  He slams the door closed behind him, slides the deadbolt into place, and says, “Shut up.”  He desperately hopes the split second of hesitation he sees in Erwin’s expression is the result of fear.

Erwin doesn’t move as he stalks across the room, just stands behind his desk and watches.  It pisses Levi right the fuck off.

He leans over Erwin’s desk and grabs him by the collar of his shirt.  Erwin only stares back at him, gaze steady, lips pursed into a carefully neutral expression.  Levi feels his breath come out in a hiss.  “What the fuck,” he whispers, low and furious, “is wrong with you?”

“Levi,” Erwin says.  It comes out soft and patronizing.  “I’m sure if you spend a minute to think about this -- “

“No,” Levi says.  He feels something swell up in his chest once again, outrage he can’t seem to quell, and pulls Erwin farther over his own desk.  Levi drags him forward until their faces are centimeters apart and Erwin is straining to hold himself up.  “Fuck you,” he spits.  It doesn’t feel like enough.

“If you just give me a moment to explain….”  Erwin speaks very calmly, collectedly.  Like he’s been thinking for a long time about how he’s going to frame this.

“Explain what?” Levi snaps, tightening his grip.  “Explain how you get to make all my personal decisions for me?  How you get to decide when and where I fuck the people under my direct command?”

Erwin opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, Levi leans in to bite his lower lip.  “Shut up,” he says.

He doesn’t realize until that moment that he’s acting differently than he normally would.  That -- he may not still be in heat, but he’s not out of it yet, either.  There are still hormones in his system wreaking havoc on his behavior, on his control, putting him right in the middle of his fury instead of letting him detach.

“Levi, it wasn’t like that.  I simply thought it would be prudent -- “

Levi feels a hot wave of rage swallow him up, and suddenly none of that matters.  “Do you have any idea how fucked that was?”  He knots a hand in Erwin’s hair, pulls his neck back so he can glare Erwin right in the eye.  “Any at all?”

“Levi -- “  

His tone takes on that commanding edge, like he’s just about done humoring Levi.  Like this is some kind of game.  He cranes Erwin’s neck back even farther, no doubt straining his muscles.  “Back where I’m from, I would’ve killed someone for doing what you did.”

Erwin places his only hand over where Levi’s is knotted in his hair, and with no small amount of strength, pries it out.  “We are not back where you are from, Levi.”  He meets Levi’s gaze with steady resolve, levelheaded and sober.  “Sit down.”

Levi doesn’t know what it is about that that pisses him off so much.  Doesn’t know what it is that makes him do what it is he does next, just knows that it feels right in the moment.

He lets go of Erwin, takes a step back, and throws a punch straight for his nose.

Erwin pushes himself up off the desk, putting himself beyond Levi’s reach.  “Levi!” he barks.

“Fight me,” Levi says, pulling his fist back to his side, rounding Erwin’s desk with legs far too shaky to do much of anything.  “Come on,” he says, feigning calmness.  “Fight me!”

Levi moves to shove at Erwin’s chest only to have Erwin back up again, dodging him.  “Levi,” Erwin says.  Gently.  With forced, unctuous empathy.  “I’m not going to fight you.”  Levi’s rather blindsided when he hears himself snarl.

Slowly, Erwin approaches Levi where he stands, placing his hand on Levi’s right shoulder.  He squeezes tightly, reassuringly.

They have been together so, so long, and after _twelve years_ he chooses to fuck Levi over.

“Now, are you going to sit down and listen -- ?”

Levi cuts him off with a sharp punch to the gut.

A tense moment passes.  Levi pulls his fist back.  Erwin quietly clutches at his stomach and mutters, “Hell.”

With a single hand, Levi grabs him by the collar and yanks him down until his head is close to level with Levi’s.  “Fight.  Me.”  It’s hormones, mostly, but also some desire that’s been nagging at him since Eren since he walked into Levi’s room.  

It’s then that he remembers that the paper Eren had brought with him is still crumpled into a tiny ball in his fist.  He takes it, drops it on the floor, and smashes it beneath the flat of his boot.  Which doesn’t really do much to the physical paper since it’s already been crushed as much as it possibly can by the force of Levi’s angry fists, but it does get Erwin’s gaze to turn dark and moody -- more so than either of the punches did, interestingly enough.  Erwin raises a too-calm eyebrow to say, “You want to fight?”

He shrugs off his jacket.  Levi steps back to let him, something visceral and more animal than Levi would like rumbling contentedly inside him.  “Very well,” Erwin says, straightening his back and settling his shoulders square.  It’s an imitation of the posture Alphas affect, something he’s learned for political reasons.  It doesn’t look as intimidating without an arm.

In retrospect, Levi will realize the reason that makes him so angry is that he feels the need to pretend he’s someone else as much as Erwin does.  There are a lot of things about this incident that he’ll only understand in retrospect.

In that moment, however, he pulls his leg back and kicks Erwin in the shin.

It’s clear from the start that Erwin hasn’t fought another human being since the two-day unit on hand-to-hand combat.  Erwin tries to throw a punch right at Levi’s face, too slow and leaving his body wide open to Levi -- he wonders if they even had that unit back in Erwin’s day.  He’s clumsy and doesn’t know exactly where to hit, and it only takes Levi a few seconds to bury his fist in Erwin’s solar plexus, bend his arm behind his back.

Levi would have thought that he’d be less physically able in his state.  He can still feel his fingertips buzz and his gut churn and hot sweat pour down his forehead.  He pushes Erwin up against the wall -- Levi doesn’t have the size to pin him down, but pushing a knee up against his balls works just as well.

“Levi,” Erwin says.

Levi growls, digs his teeth into the flesh of Erwin’s shoulder.  “Fuck you,” he says, his heart thudding frantic in his chest, his thoughts fraying into a haze of impulse and gratification, yanking Erwin’s shirt out of his belt and sliding his hands across the smooth skin of his back.  “ _Fuck_ ,” Levi says.

Levi slides his hands over the curve of Erwin’s ass.  Erwin clears his throat.  Levi would have expected him to throw more of a fit about being...dominated.  Although, on another level entirely, he’s not surprised in the least.  “Levi,” Erwin starts.  Levi takes the chance to deliver a sharp smack of Erwin’s ass, feeling satisfaction well up in him all warm and keen.  He watches Erwin’s shoulders tense and then relax before he asks, too calmly, “Are you still in heat?”

“No,” Levi says.  He hikes his knee up a little farther into Erwin’s junk, until he can feel Erwin’s pulse beat frenzied from the artery in his thigh.  He bites Erwin again, right along the spine.  Why was he angry again?  “I’m going to end you,” he says, snapping the buttons lined up along the front of Erwin’s uniform.  Erwin lifts his torso from the wall to let him.  “Gonna make you fuck Eren Jaeger,” he snarls.  “See how you like it.”

Erwin swallows so loudly Levi hears it.  “Did you actually sleep with him?”

Levi rakes his nails down Erwin’s chest, from as high as he can reach to the waist of Erwin’s pants.  “His come is currently dribbling down the inside of my thigh,” Levi growls.  “Disgusting.”  Levi wrinkles his nose.  “Seventeen-year-old’s jizz.”

Levi can hear the way he swallows from where his head rests against the curve of Erwin’s back.  “Levi, I need you to stop and let me go.”  Something bubbles up inside Levi and spills out of his mouth in a growl.  “Something is wrong, Levi.”

How many times has Erwin said his name?  More than Levi can count, at the beginning and end of his sentences.  Levi knows what that is -- it’s a persuasion technique.  Erwin told him that once. Repeating people’s names makes them like you, makes them wanna do things for you.  Erwin had told him that when he still took Levi to meetings.

“Stop trying to manipulate me.”  Levi grabs a fistful of Erwin’s stupid hair -- there’s still gel slicking his fingers from where he had done the same before -- and pushes his cheek into the flat of the wall.  “Stop manipulating me.”

Erwin breathes -- once in, once out.  Levi feels his chest expand and contract pressed against his body, the curve of Erwin’s back and his ass, the jut of his shoulders and the musculature of his forearm Levi can see with the sleeve of his shirt rolled up.  Erwin presses his forehead against the wall and goes relatively pliant against Levi.  He had always known when surrender was the better route.

“Good,” Levi mutters.  He does it like he’s talking to an animal, praising a dog for timely obedience, and sick satisfaction rushes through him.  It’s the same feeling he gets when he slashes the neck of a Titan.  “Good.”

The fury that had been bubbling hot in his gut cools to a manageable level.  Having Erwin go acquiescent under him settles something deep and angry and undeniably out-of-control -- he just pinned Erwin to a wall, holy shit -- and that’s the exact moment he pops a boner.

It takes him a few seconds to realize, actually.  He pulls his hands off Erwin and braces them on either side of his torso.  “Erwin,” he says, and resists the urge to swallow his own tongue.  “I’m still in heat.”

“Yes.”  For a long moment, Erwin is silent.  “Could you please get off me so I can do something about it?”

Levi is still angry.  He’s angry and at least three different kinds of mortified, but he pushes off the wall and removes his knee from between Erwin’s legs.  For half as long as he can remember he’s trusted Erwin with his heats.

Erwin turns around, dragging his hand down the fabric on either side of his shirt to smooth out the rumples, and then begins to button the rest of his shirt back up.  Whether it’s a gesture born of the genuine desire to maintain his appearance or to buy Erwin time to gather himself, Levi doesn’t know or care.  Levi slaps Erwin’s hand away before he can do up any of his buttons, and instead grabs him by the collar of his shirt once again and proceeds to throw him haphazardly over the surface of his own desk.  There’s nothing there but a few papers that crumple under Erwin’s shoulders and a pen that clatters to the floor.  He can feel Erwin breathe in sharply under his fingers.

“I understand that you’re angry Levi, however...” Erwin starts.  Levi pays him no mind, spreads the loose-hanging flaps of Erwin’s shirt with eyes peeled wide.  More quietly, he continues, “You have a right to be angry.”  He digs his teeth into the skin of Erwin’s chest, feeling the swell of Erwin’s pectorals, the edge of his last rib, the soft give of his stomach before he goes for the fastener of Erwin’s pants.  “I believe that -- “

Levi crawls atop Erwin, knees framing his hips.  With a hand over his mouth, Levi cuts Erwin off.  “We’ll talk about it later,” he says through clenched teeth.

Erwin looks up at him with grey eyes steady as stone.  After a long moment.

“Good,” Levi says.  He reaches down to shove Erwin’s pants down his thighs only to cut himself off when Erwin pushes himself up on his forearm.  Levi lets out an annoyed sound from deep in his throat and pushes Erwin flat on the desk.  Erwin, himself, gives no resistance, only directing a cold eye in Levi’s direction.  “Stay still,” Levi says, nails digging into the swell of Erwin’s collar bone.

There’s more behind the command that he doesn’t get to communicate, doesn’t know how to.  Something sick and twisted curling low in his gut, something hurt in a way he hasn’t felt since he was a kid having his first heat trying to muffle his noises in threadbare sheets, remarks about how inconvenient he was bouncing around in his head, something that very much wants to lash back out and make Erwin be the sex cow he wanted Levi to be.

He slides to his feet once again, yanking at the waistband of Erwin’s pants until he raises his hips and lets Levi slide his pants and his underwear down the rest of his thighs in one smooth motion, grabs at Erwin’s dick --

“Fuck,” Levi swears.  Erwin’s completely soft.  “Seriously?” he mutters.

Nonchalantly, Erwin says, “Getting shoved around isn’t exactly arousing, Levi.”

There’s one part of Levi that very, very seriously does not believe that -- coming from Erwin, of all people, but on another -- “Really?” Levi asks, plastering his palm over the flat of Erwin’s stomach.  He continues pointedly, “Getting forced to do things you don’t want to do isn’t hot for you?”

Erwin’s gaze drifts somewhere off to the side of Levi’s head.  “I don’t think the situations are quite parallel -- “

“Shut up,” Levi snaps.  Erwin shoots him a quietly furious look, but Levi averts his eyes.  Before Erwin can say anything, he sits back on his heels and shoves the end of Erwin’s dick in his mouth.

Erwin inhales sharply, but doesn’t moan.  Levi isn’t surprised.  He doesn’t put any technique or thought into the blowjob, just bobs and swipes his tongue over the head of Erwin’s dick, waiting for him to get hard.

Erwin doesn’t easily comply.  He moves his hand down to card through Levi’s hair; Levi bats it away.  He grips Levi’s shoulder only to have his hand shrugged off.  He tries moving his hips only to have Levi pin him down, all while Erwin remains insufficiently hard to fuck him.

For a split second, Levi glances up to find Erwin’s gaze in some contortion of an expression that could be frustration or hurt or both.

Levi doesn’t know what he was expecting.

With a slick, wet noise, Levi pulls his mouth off Erwin’s dick and takes up stroking him.  Slow and rough, just the way he likes it.  “Get.  Fucking.  Hard.”

With head resting back against the desk, gaze turned towards the ceiling, Erwin grumbles, “I can’t just do it on command, Levi.”

“I don’t care how you do it, just fucking do it.”

Erwin sighs through his nose, quiet and irritated, lips pursed.  Levi props an arm against Erwin’s thigh and his chin on top of that, and waits, pumping Erwin’s dick with one steady hand.

“Alright,” Erwin says after a moment.  “Just -- please, let me do it.”  He bats Levi’s hand away with a careful shooing motion.  Levi pulls back and, just as Erwin starts to stroke himself, sinks his teeth into Erwin’s thigh.

Erwin hisses in pain, but doesn’t stop.

Levi leans his head to the side and glares up at Erwin, who avoids him by directing his eyes up to the ceiling.  Briefly, he lets all of the breath out of his lungs, lets the anger (betrayal) settle calmly into the pit of his stomach, and begins to wait.

\---

Erwin doesn’t actually know how he managed to let this situation get so out of hand.

He had expected Levi to be angry, of course.  That was a given.  He just hadn’t expected Levi to be so...furious.

It's not that he never saw Levi angry, nowadays, just that his anger tended to be more ruthless and brutal than...whatever this is.  He feels like he's interacting with Levi from all those years ago:  the Levi he had found panting in a broom closet, dead set on gripping his pride, his dignity with a vice-like grip and never, ever letting go.  Who never let go of his own control.

On second thought, Erwin really _should_ have been able to predict exactly how furious Levi would become with this plan.

He doesn’t know why he didn’t think about it.

If Erwin had been required to write out his expectations on paper -- which he wouldn’t have, considering how difficult writing had become in the last few months without his right hand -- he would have said that Levi likely would have kicked Eren out and scrubbed himself down from head to toe before he came to confront Erwin.  It may have even taken him that long to even figure out that Erwin was responsible for the situation, depending on how the actual encounter played out.  It would have given him some time to cool his head.

But instead he had come down immediately.  With Jaeger’s sweat still cached on his skin, his scent still lingering in Levi’s hair, his come still in Levi’s body, and Levi still in heat.

It was...different than Erwin had expected it to be.

Erwin runs his thumb over the head of his own cock, inept and clumsy with his unpracticed left hand.  He does what he has to do.

(Keep the Survey Corps alive; keep humanity alive.  Keep his best people functioning.)

He sighs.  He doesn’t know how he let this situation get so out of his control, but he decides then that he has to get it back as soon as possible.  “I could die any day now, Levi.”

He glances the length of his body only to find Levi still glaring at him with the same expression he had been before.  Like Erwin hadn’t even spoken.

And Erwin doesn’t really know what to do with that.  He knows that Levi tends to be rather immature during his heats, but he doesn’t know how to deal with the silence.  As long as Levi talks it’s at least some imitation of a conversation, no matter much Levi won’t listen and how illogical Erwin gets.  It’s the same during every one of Levi’s heats.

So Erwin knows that it won’t do much good.  He keeps talking anyway.

“And when considering a long-term mate, Eren is one of the most logical choices,” Erwin says.  He feels his voice sink into that hard, lecturing tone -- the same one he uses for addressing a room.  It’s not a bad tone, by any means, but one Levi should be able to identify as rote after only a few words.  “He’s -- “  Erwin slips his hand off his cock when he notices that Levi’s saliva is starting to dry along the shaft, leaving the skin dry and frictionless.  Levi’s eyes slide from Erwin’s face to his now-limp hand and still-limp dick.  He looks irritated.  “He’s unlikely to die anytime soon.”  Erwin swallows.  “Possibly ever.”

Erwin pauses.  He briefly wonders if what he’s about to say is wise, but decides to continue regardless.  A small, small bit of guilt coils low in the pit of Erwin’s stomach.  (But he shouldn’t be guilty; he did what was best for Levi.  He did what he had to do.)

“Eren’s an Alpha.”

He watches as Levi’s eyebrows furrow, his jaw clenches, his lips turn down into an ugly, dark expression.  The tips of his fingers dig into the soft skin of Erwin’s thigh and defensively, Erwin curls his fist around his dick.  “And he likes you.”

“I don’t need an Alpha,” Levi says, bracing his arms on either side of Erwin’s hips.  “I don’t want an Alpha.”  Erwin sucks in a surprised breath as Levi climbs over him, pinning Erwin to the desk in between his knees.  His breath skates hot across Erwin’s neck.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Erwin says in what he thinks is probably a pretty decent impression of collected given that he has a very hot, very unmanageable Omega glaring down at him with a gaze that speaks pure murder.  And his only hand wrapped around his dick, only arm pinned to his own body by Levi’s weight.

“That’s exactly what you’re saying.”  Levi’s eyes jitter within his skull, focus darting across Erwin’s face at an alarming speed.  

“Levi, please calm down and listen to what I have -- “

“Didn't fucking need this,” Levi mutters into Erwin’s ear, his tongue slurring over his teeth at odd places.  "Didn't."  Erwin doesn’t think Levi himself notices, but he grinds his hips down into Erwin’s stomach.  “But now we’re here.”  Erwin hears in exquisite detail the sound Levi’s throat makes as he swallows.  “Do you have any idea how fucked up it is?” he asks.  “The kid’s under my direct command.”  Levi pants little puffs of breath across Erwin’s nose and cheeks.  He hasn’t stripped off a single layer of clothing, despite the fact that heat radiates off him like he’s his own private sun.  

Closing his eyes, Levi continues.  “The kid’s...”  He trails off, and that small, tightly-knit, guilty part of Erwin has him sit still and wait for him to finish.  “A kid.”

Erwin has hurt plenty of people in his life, throwing everything from people’s comfort to their lives away in order to keep the human race moving forward.  This is far from the first time he’s felt guilty over it.

Guilty, but not regretful.  Guilt did not mean he made the wrong decision -- every decision is incorrect in some way, has some kind of downside.  It's impossible to gain an edge, to truly accomplish anything without being willing to sacrifice something.  It’s always been Erwin’s job to minimize those downsides in the long run, think ahead, deal with the consequences of the best decision.  He does not regret, as a rule, because what is done has already been done.  Those who are dead cannot reanimate, what has been destroyed cannot be pieced back together.

He gazes up at Levi’s face -- flushed, sweaty, and very, very angry.  He's been trying to tell himself he has no business being in love with Levi for a long, long time, and the same part of him that whispers the cold, hard facts of attachment --unavoidable, permanent, disastrous, undeniable -- to him in the dead of night now mutters of the possibility that he may be deluding himself.

“I don’t want Jaeger,” Levi mutters as he scrambles back up, fumbling around for Erwin’s cock.  He groans low and bitter when he finds Erwin flaccid.  Angrily, almost like a child, he groans, “Why are you not hard?”

Levi’s words come from between gritted teeth, strangled and over-enunciated.  Erwin sighs, and squeezes his eyes shut.  “Levi -- “

All at once, a weight drops down on Erwin’s chest like a sack of bricks.  Erwin blinks.

“I’m so tired,” Levi says, leaning bodily onto Erwin.  Which is...frankly, rather worrying.  There have only been a handful of times in his life Erwin has ever heard Levi admit exhaustion -- and it is, usually, in the wake of mass death.

He squirms on top of Erwin.  In other circumstances Erwin might have found it funny, but the heat radiating off Levi, the way his limbs go entirely limp on top of Erwin’s body, is not in the least amusing.

“Levi.”  Erwin sits up, pushing Levi up by one shoulder and watching as Levi’s body slumps in the opposite direction.  His forehead collides with Erwin’s shoulder, hot against Erwin’s skin.  “You’re burning up.”

“Fuck you,” Levi mutters.  “I’m not -- “  His breath ghosts damp over Erwin’s chest.  “Not a child.”  Nails scrape across Erwin’s nipple, and he jumps.  “Can make my own fucking decisions."

Feeling his stomach drop in his gut -- that would be guilt (or possibly regret) -- Erwin sits all the way up.  Levi slouches nearly limp against him.  “Levi,” he says.  “I need you to stand up.”

“Had enough fuckin’ -- ” Levi mutters into Erwin’s shoulder, so slurred he’s barely understandable.  “Fucking people I don’t want to.  In my life.”  

Erwin swallows.  “Stand up.”

A pause hangs heavy in the air.  Erwin takes a breath.

“I’m sorry,” he says, hyperaware of the thin streak of panic that darts through his chest.  His awareness lowers and, for a split second, he holds his breath waiting for Levi’s response, but a second passes in further silence and Erwin only continues.  “Please stand, Levi.”

More silence.  Thickly, Erwin swallows.

Slowly, Levi slides to his feet.  His sweat tacks the surface of Erwin’s skin.

It isn’t that heats are particularly dangerous, Erwin knows, especially if one takes the...quicker route, instead of simply waiting it out.  But the way that Levi radiates heat -- hotter than normal, Erwin is sure, it must be hotter than normal -- the way he seems to be gasping for breath, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead, soaking into his clothes so the front of his shirt tacks sticky to his chest, scent so strong it feels like it’s going to put Erwin’s sense of smell permanently out of commission.  And considering that he had already had sex….

“I’m going to call someone,” Erwin says, removing his one hand from Levi’s person and rising to his feet.  Hanji would probably be the best choice, though if he couldn’t find them Erwin would likely have to ask Nanaba, or possibly Moblit -- though he was likely to be wherever Hanji was.  There just aren’t that many adults left in the Survey Corps….  Erwin yanks his pants up to settle back on his hips.  It would be perfectly possible, Erwin has no idea what Hanji’s schedule is or if they’re involved in any of the training exercises this evening -- Erwin would have to --

“No,” Levi protests, shoving his fingers in the waistband of Erwin’s pants before he can zip them back up.

Erwin swallows and very pointedly ignores the part of him that feels like he’s failed.

“I don’t -- not -- “  Levi looks up at him with heavy, intense eyes.  “You.”  He says it like he actually believes what he’s saying makes sense.

Many, many years ago, Erwin promised himself that he would do his best to keep Levi healthy and functioning -- Erwin couldn’t do much to keep him safe, but he could at least make sure that his best soldier wasn’t randomly taken out of commission by needless biological functions.  (And if at some point that had morphed into actual caring, well -- Erwin had nothing to say about that.)

It becomes clear to him after only a few seconds of thought, Erwin’s failure is far more than subjective.

“Levi, I’m not going to,” he swallows, clasping Levi’s shoulders, “get hard.  I’m going to go call someone who can properly -- “

Under Erwin’s fingers, the muscles of Levi’s shoulders spasm.  It hits Erwin all at once exactly how bad this situation is -- and it’s not something Erwin can just fuck around with, try to delicately juggle in order to get Levi to understand, to have him get along with Erwin.  To not destroy the relationship they’ve fallen into.  He’s _still_ in heat, that isn’t _right_ , and if any part of Erwin’s panic is based in thoughts of how much he fucked up this entire maneuver it’s drowned in his single-minded resolve to fix the situation.

Erwin plants his feet in the ground.  Levi tugs but his muscles relax to the point where he can’t quite muster the strength.  He falls limp against Erwin once again, and with his one arm Erwin tries his best to hold Levi up, but only succeeds in slowing his collapse -- he doesn’t have the right leverage, doesn’t possess the same strength he used to.  It’s been goddamn months since Erwin lost his arm and still, he can’t compensate for everything.

Levi ends up on his knees, Erwin crouched over him.  Anxiety grips Erwin like a vice, but he breathes through it.

“I want you,” Levi says.  “You.”  His chest heaves as he gasps for breath under Erwin’s arm.  “I hate that I want you.  You broke every -- single fucking -- reason I had.  For trusting.”  Levi pauses for a long moment.  Erwin lets his hand drift down to Levi’s hips.  “For relying,” Levi says, “on you.”

Without his permission, Erwin’s expression bends into one of pity.

“But I want you,” Levi says.

Erwin steels himself against his own emotions -- he’s been doing that for as long as he can remember; he’s never been able to understand how Levi manages to make him feel so erratic. Hot, gushy care rises from his gut and into his throat.  Erwin has to spend a moment gathering himself, wrapping himself up so tight nothing can spill out without his permission before he opens his mouth to speak.

And Levi tackles him.

Erwin’s head whips back into the ground with a crack!  He doesn’t have any time to compensate or brace himself -- Erwin just doesn’t expect it.  The pain thudding at the back of his head takes him by surprise.

“Shit,” he hears Levi say.  It’s quiet, but with feeling.  “Fuck.”

He really has never been able to predict how Levi behaves during his heats.

Levi clutches at the back of Erwin’s head, pulling it up a couple inches from the ground.  He runs his fingers through Erwin’s hair, searching for blood, for a long few seconds before he grunts.  “Are you okay?” he asks, just as quietly.  His voice doesn’t waver.

Erwin pushes Levi up off of him and moves to support himself with the other, expecting the cool press of the stone floor on his palm.  It sends a jolt of surprise shivering up his spine when he realizes that there’s nothing there -- no hand, no elbow, just a stump sitting a few inches from his shoulder.  

Erwin’s teeth screech in protest as he grinds them together, and pushes himself up.  It hasn’t been long enough, he rationalizes.  He wonders if it will ever be long enough.

“I’m fine,” Erwin says.  He removes his hand from Levi in order to push himself up, then immediately goes to feel along the back of his head for bumps.  He comes up with nothing.

Thighs straddling Erwin’s hips, Levi says nothing.  His fists clench tight in the material of his pants.  

“It’s alright, Levi.”

He squirms uncomfortably in Erwin’s lap, and when he moves his gaze up from the vicinity of Erwin’s chest to his eyes, Erwin catches a glimpse of everything Levi thinks but never says:  the shame he never admits to, the regret he never allows, the apology buzzing unsaid just under his skin.  Erwin sees exactly how much Levi cares about his control, about his image, about the standards for the life he wishes to lead.

Erwin’s never been one for ethics, but that strikes him as wrong.

“Levi,” Erwin says, raising a hand to card his fingers though Levi’s hair.  His phantom right arm throbs, and he feels his own inadequacy writhe low in his gut.  “I’m sorry.”

Politics are different than battle, Erwin knows, and in that moment the situation opens up to him not like the cultivated text of a book, but like the messy struggle of a battlefield.

He watches Levi pry his eyelids wide open, his jaw clench and convulse.  “Good,” he says.

Everything with Levi is a battle.

And then, softening, Levi clasps a hand on Erwin’s shoulder, fingertips tigging into the meat of it.  He asks again, “Are you okay?”

A concession for a concession.  It’s probably the closest he’ll ever get to an apology.

“I’m fine,” Erwin says.

Levi knots his fingers in the fabric of Erwin’s shirt.  He shifts where he sits on Erwin’s hips, the rough material of his pants rubbing harshly against Erwin’s.  For the first time since Levi had arrived, Erwin feels arousal gather hot in the pit of his stomach.  Levi looks down at Erwin, calculating, and after a long moment he seems to come to a decision.  “You’re going to fuck me,” he says.

Concession, submission, retreat.  There are many words for what Erwin does, but in that moment it doesn’t particularly matter what name he puts to the concept.  He says, “Yes,” and that is that.

He lets Levi lead him, first to standing and then to walking, letting the rate of Levi’s breath wash over him, to pull of Levi’s hands guide him to the adjacent room, let’s Levi’s twitching muscles push him back onto his own bed.

As Levi throws his knees on either side of Erwin’s hips, it occurs to him how much of a role reversal this is.  The Omega in the dominant, leading position.

And the very next moment it hits Erwin as a little thud to the chest -- that’s how things have always been.  He wonders, briefly, why exactly it is that he seems to underestimate Levi so chronically.  It seems he should have learned better by now.

Erwin smiles to himself, quietly.

Levi doesn’t seem to take notice.  He tears at Erwin’s clothes with something not quite desperation or determination.  After a second passes, Erwin places it as frustration.  “I’m sorry, Levi,” he says, moving to help Levi in pulling off his shirt.  

“Shut up,” Levi says, emphasizing his words with a shove to Erwin’s shoulders that has Erwin losing his balance and collapsing back onto his own mattress.

He yanks at Erwin’s pants with focus that likely covers exactly how incapacitated he is at the moment.  Erwin raises his hips, and he focuses on how Levi’s muscles tremble, the harsh curve of his collarbone.  He plays the sharp tone of Levi saying, “Shut up!” over in his mind a few times, and he breathes.  He lets his worries take a break, lets his brain take a break, as Levi runs his palm over Erwin’s dick.  Loudly, Erwin sighs.

Levi scoffs.  “Now you get hard.”

Erwin doesn’t respond, just stretches his arm above his head, palm up.  He relaxes and watches as Levi slides off him, standing to unbutton his shirt and shuck off his pants.  From underneath the deft line of his bangs, Levi gives him a look.  “Stop watching me.”

He crawls back on top of Erwin, glaring.  Erwin meets his eyes calmly.  He’s trusted Levi to understand him without words for a long, long time.

“I’m not forgiving you,” Levi says, gripping Erwin’s dick in his hand, squeezing just hard enough to make Erwin feel uncomfortable.

“Alright,” Erwin says.  He rides the crest of his emotions without getting sucked beneath the crash of the wave; he consumes himself with his purpose.  Let Levi have what he wants.  Make it up to him.  He thinks about that and the curve of Levi’s jaw, and the way his stomach muscles clench as he prepares to slip Erwin’s dick inside himself.

He closes his eyes and gropes for more things to fill his mind with -- sex is just bodily function, just something necessary to accomplish -- but all he comes up with is Levi.  Endless thoughts of Levi:  his eyes and his frown and how his ass feels cradled in Erwin’s palm.

Erwin blinks.  He hasn’t actually had sex with anyone other than Levi in the last...decade?  He had simply found Levi dependable, trustworthy, and honest in a way he had never experienced with anyone else before.  In the brief interludes Erwin had over the years where he actually had time to think about things so frivolous, it hadn’t seemed logical to look for fulfillment anywhere else.

Levi moans -- a quiet, understated kind of thing.  Thickly, Erwin swallows, and lets his eyes flutter closed.  He lets himself feel how Levi’s body clenches tight around his cock, how Levi’s knees press in on either side of Erwin’s ribcage, his deep deep voice and the way he pants all hot and needy and god how could he ever have wanted someone else to have this?

Levi comes before he does, limbs shaking and voice trembling with a low, long moan.  Come splatters over Erwin’s stomach.  He doesn’t open his eyes to watch, but he imagines what Levi looks like, lip bitten and chest flushed red.  He’s seen it plenty of times before.

After a moment of stillness in the wake of Levi’s orgasm, Erwin bites his lips and bucks his hips up into Levi’s body.  

For a long moment, Levi does nothing -- Erwin feels Levi’s palms fall flat on his chest.  As Levi’s breath ghosts across Erwin’s face, he lets his eyes flutter open and sees Levi with his eyes squeezed shut, lip held like a vice in between his teeth.

Erwin raises his hand to drag his fingers down Levi’s cheek, and all the feelings he always forces himself to ignore punch him full-force in the gut.  Levi’s eyes open to stare back at Erwin, who swallows.  He holds Levi’s gaze.  It’s probably the closest he’ll ever get to saying, ‘I love you.’

With a grunt, Levi starts moving again, pushing off the flat plane of Erwin’s chest.  He lets his eyes fall closed again.

It only takes him another few minutes to come -- he grips Levi’s hip and thrusts up into him.  Levi comes one more time just before Erwin does, this time with a shuddering sigh, digging little nail prints into Erwin’s skin.

Levi collapses on top of Erwin.  He falls off to one side, like he had tried to roll off Erwin and failed.

Erwin lays his hand on the back of Levi’s head, palm almost as wide as Levi’s skull, and takes up running his fingers through Levi’s hair.  “I’m sorry,” he says, again.

“Fuck off,” Levi says.  “Eren’s dick was bigger than yours.”

Erwin frowns, but he continues to stroke Levi’s hair.

Levi pushes himself up to his elbows, hovering over Erwin.  “Just because you don’t have a fucking arm doesn’t mean you’re gonna die tomorrow.”

Erwin stiffens.  That had been surprisingly perceptive of Levi.  Somewhere in the back of his brain, secondary to the part that causes him to turn his head to the side, breaking eye contact with Levi, Erwin feels proud.

Levi grabs Erwin’s chin between a thumb and forefinger.  Very firmly, Erwin ignores the little jolt of excitement that zings through him.  “I don’t need an Alpha,” Levi says.  Erwin meets his eyes.  “And I don’t need you to decide what the fuck I need.”

Erwin nods.  “Okay.”

Levi clenches his fists in the sheets.  “Okay?” he asks, his tone biting.

“I understand.”

Levi sits on Erwin’s stomach.  Erwin has to clench his abdominals in order to avoid being crushed.  “I need more than that,” Levi says.

Erwin glances up at Levi, at the anger in his gaze and the shame nestled just underneath, and steels himself.  “What?”

\---

“Eren,” Erwin says, hand laying over his thigh, his legs crossed at the knee.  “I would like to apologize.”

Wide-eyed, Eren glances from Erwin to Levi standing just behind him, then back at Erwin.  His head hangs forward and his lips part, slightly agape.  His eyes catch Levi’s with a soft, pleading gaze.  In response, Levi scowls.

For a long second, Erwin stares at Eren without saying anything.  Levi drops a hand on Erwin’s shoulder.  It is not meant to be kind.

Erwin leans forward, shaking Levi’s hand off.  It’s subtle, and even if Eren wasn’t an idiot, Levi doubts he would have noticed.  “I orchestrated the...situation between Levi and you.  Yesterday.”

Eren blinks.

“It wasn’t Levi’s decision.  It was mine, and it was…” he pauses in the middle of his sentence to swallow.  Levi wonders if it’s honest, or part of some kind of front -- not that it really matters as long as the job gets done.  “It was not with his consent.”

Once again, Eren blinks.

“And I would like to apologize to you for the…”  he pauses.  Levi swears he can hear Erwin mince his own words in the silence.  “...miscalculation.”

Levi kicks the foot of Erwin’s chair.

“The manipulation,” Erwin corrects.  His head tilts just far enough to the side for him to make eye contact with Levi, who knows his own gaze is disapproving and sharp.  Levi glares right back.

“And,” Levi prompts, jaw clenched.

“It will not be happening again.”  Erwin says.  He clears his throat.  “It was an error on my part, and for that, I am truly sorry.”

Eren balks.  A long few seconds pass in utter silence.  To Levi, it looks like the kid’s jaw is about to come unhinged.  He asks, lips parted, “You’re Levi’s Alpha?”

Levi opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Erwin cuts him off.  “No.”

Eren looks from Erwin to Levi.

“I don’t have an Alpha,” Levi says.

“Oh, Eren says.  “Do you -- ?”

“I don’t want an Alpha.”  When Eren continues to stare up at him, Levi continues, “I don’t need one.”

Eren bites his own lip, and Levi glare down at him.  It takes him a moment to realize that he’s standing over Eren, a single foot planted against the edge of his chair in the gap between Eren’s thighs.  “You got that, brat?”

“Okay,” Eren says.  “I got it.”  He doesn’t look Levi in the eye.  As Levi watches, a thin sheen of sweat forms over the kid’s forehead.

Some part of Levi is deeply, deeply satisfied with that.

He steps aside and allows Eren and Erwin to resume their conversation.

Erwin brings his hand up from his lap to cover his mouth as he clears his throat -- loudly, with clear purpose.  Levi catches in his peripheral vision the tiniest quirk of Erwin’s lips.

Eren, however, speaks first.  “What...was that you were saying?”

Erwin smiles.  It seems to strain his features.

“You heard him,” Levi says, resuming his place behind Erwin’s high-backed chair.  He props an elbow up against the back of it, obnoxiously close to Erwin’s head.  “Say it again.”

Erwin does not crane his head back to glare at Levi.  He doesn’t do anything at all that Levi can see, in fact, but Levi still feels disapproval radiate from him.

Levi, for the first time in quite awhile, finds himself fighting back a smile.

Erwin opens his mouth and takes a breath in.  “Eren, the situation earlier…”

Quietly, when neither Eren nor Erwin are looking, Levi lets himself relax.  He rests his weight on the chair, lets his shoulders untense, and allows himself a very, very small smile.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: "Erwin Smith Makes a BIIIG Mistake (no homo)"
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated ❤


End file.
